A roughly 100-year-old jar of pickled asparagus from Nyadal has entered the collections of Västernorrlands museum. Åke Lundgren, of Östersund, gave it. It is not for smelling and not for tasting. He does not throw food away for nothing; the children do not want it; he is tired of carrying it. “None of my children is interested in taking over the jar and I am damn tired of it.”

In the 1920s his grandmother grew the asparagus in the garden of the mill-manager’s villa at Nyadal. It was preserved in a glass jar. It has sat there since. “After five years it had become a rarity. Then Mum inherited it, then I have lugged it around all my adult life.”

Last year he took it to Antikrundan, on the programme’s visit to Härnösand, for a valuation. The advice was to give it to the museum, not the market. It now lives permanently in the collections. The family still has the habit: his brother has a jar too, on a bookshelf, as a curiosity. They took one each.

Elin Lundin, collections antiquarian, says the object can tell how people lived in the early twentieth century. “The idea is to exhibit it and show it digitally, so we will make it accessible.” HärnösandsNytt confirms the gift and the plan to show it, including digitally, as everyday life.

Nyadal is in Kramfors municipality. The museum sits at Murberget, Härnösand. The jar moves from a family cupboard to a heritage object. It is not an auction valuation and not a price record. It is a preserve nobody will eat.

Lundgren is glad to have somewhere to leave it. The museum is glad to have a story of a garden, a manager’s villa and three generations who never opened the lid.

Image: Blajo, Murberget, Västernorrland County Museum, Härnösand, 3 September 2009, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The open-air museum, not the jar in the collections.

Sources consulted: 100-åriga sparrisburken från Nyadal flyttar in på Västernorrlands museum — SVT Nyheter; Över 100 år gammal sparrisburk flyttar in på museum — HärnösandsNytt.